A note on Develop has further indications that Battlefield 3 will not be released through Steam, as speculation mounts that DICE's military shooter sequel will not appear on Valve's download service. They quote a comment from a report from financial research firm Baird based on a meeting with GameStop: "The upcoming EA title Battlefield 3 will be sold as a download through GameStop, but not through Steam," Baird says GameStop executives told them. "Given Steam's dominance – and insistence on users downloading a Steam client application – publishers are likely to be receptive to a competitive alternative." Thanks Computer and Video Games.

Giller wrote on Jul 18, 2011, 15:29:The Cliffnotes version of all this is that EA WILL be able to get away with this for BF3. Unfortunately, its probably going to hurt them in the long run as their other franchises which are not "have to have; AAA" titles. So let the eschew Steam, and its user base for now. People will vote with their dollars in the long run.

It just sucks that they obviously put a lot of effort into going big on PC but now they're going to ignore its largest and best service.

If the game ends up a sales disappointment we all know they're not going be to blaming themselves or this idiotic decision, it'll be PC gamers.